After lean years in Lincoln, Sadler savoring success at KU

Tuesday

Mar 12, 2013 at 2:31 PM

Austin Meek

LAWRENCE — Bill Self is joking when he calls Doc Sadler a Big Ten guy, because Sadler was barely in that league long enough to learn the fight songs.

Sadler is best known as the Big 12’s favorite underdog, the coach who spent six years pushing the boulder uphill and trying to get Nebraska into the NCAA Tournament. It will seem perfectly natural to see him on a bench at Sprint Center for the Big 12 Tournament, even if he’s running with a different crowd these days.

"Nebraska’s a great place, but you’re talking about a whole different deal here when it comes to basketball," said Sadler, the first-year operations director at Kansas. "When you’re talking about basketball, I think obviously everybody knows it starts at Kansas. Very, very few people have had the opportunity to be in the inner circle of that throughout the history."

Sadler’s Nebraska teams never finished better than seventh in the Big 12, so this is his chance to see how the other half lives. Working at KU has been an eye-opener, he said, and the kind of experience a basketball lifer can appreciate.

"I’ve had the opportunity to be a head coach, to coach against great people, coach in some great arenas, but there’s not going to be anything that’s going to compare to being able to be here actually working at the University of Kansas in the basketball part of it," he said.

If Sadler had his choice, of course, he’d still be at Nebraska, and Nebraska might still be in the Big 12. The Cornhuskers stuck with Sadler to guide their transition to the Big Ten, and he was optimistic that last year’s team was going to be his best of his six-year tenure.

Instead, four potential starters got hurt and the Cornhuskers limped to a 12-18 finish, resulting in Sadler’s dismissal.

"There’s no question going into the season that we thought it was going to be the best team we’d had since we’d been there, and three of those teams had gone to the NIT," he said. "But hey, it didn’t work out. That’s just the way it is."

The Cornhuskers finished 5-13 in the Big Ten this year under new coach Tim Miles, a one-game improvement from last season. The program will get a boost next year from a new downtown arena — a project that has been in the works for years — but Sadler saw the long, tough climb that awaited Nebraska in the Big Ten.

"Time’s going to tell, but I do think it’s going to be difficult," Sadler said. "But obviously it’s (a move) that the administration felt that they needed to make.

"There wasn’t any input from any of the other coaches. Sure, they asked our opinion if we would like to do this or like to do that, but the decision was made way above coaches’ heads."

Sadler had his own decision to make after being let go at Nebraska. He discussed jobs with several NBA teams and dabbled in TV work for ESPN, serving as a color commentator for one game in the NIT.

Sadler’s drawl wasn’t a drawback for the network — "I come to find out it was one of the things they liked," he said — but he couldn’t pass on the chance to work for Self.

"I never dreamed that this would be an opportunity, but when it was extended to me, I threw all the other things out the door as fast as I could and got down here before he changed his mind," Sadler said.

As director of basketball operations, Sadler coordinates KU’s team travel and handles other administrative tasks. NCAA rules prohibit him from coaching in practice, but Self values the input of someone who knows life outside the bubble of KU hoops.

"When you’ve been at different places and you’ve labored at different places, you see what brings a team together from your vantage point and what doesn’t," Self said. "I think he’s been really good for me as far as knowing when to put the foot down or when to take it off a little bit."

Sadler wants to be a head coach again, and this is the time when the coaching carousel starts to spin. (Barry Hinson, KU’s previous operations director, was hired at Southern Illinois on March 28 last year.) After working at KU, though, he sees the value in being selective.

"If I do it, I want it to be in a situation where I have a legitimate opportunity to win basketball games, where things are important to people and they want to win," Sadler said. "I see how much goes into it here. Obviously the players and the coaches do so much, but they also have a lot of support."

In the meantime, Sadler is savoring the experiences he missed out on at Nebraska. His last trip to the NCAA Tournament came as the coach at UTEP in 2005, and he’s learned just how rare these opportunities can be.

"The one thing I haven’t done is ever coached or been on the bench in a Final Four," Sadler said. "I’d love that opportunity, and with things falling the way that they may fall, there’s an opportunity to do that.

"That’s all I’m concerned about right now is the next month, doing whatever I can to help this team reach its full potential."

WITHEY, MCLEMORE EARN AWARDS: Kansas center Jeff Withey and guard Ben McLemore were named to the 10-member all-district team announced Tuesday by the U.S. Basketball Writers Association.

The All-District VI team includes players from Kansas, Missouri, Iowa, Oklahoma, Nebraska, North Dakota and South Dakota.

Withey also was named a second-team All-American by The Sporting News, while McLemore was on the third team. Both players were named to the All-Big 12 first team.

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